Chipmaker Nvidia plans big expansion in Santa Clara

By George AvalosContra Costa Times

Posted:
02/20/2013 04:41:54 PM PST

Updated:
02/20/2013 08:42:46 PM PST

An artist rendering of the aerial view of the new Nvidia headquarters near its current base in Santa Clara. The campus, to be built on a 24-acre parcel that Nvidia purchased in 2008, will consist of two buildings, each with 500,000 square feet, the company said in a statement. The parcel is near the corner of San Tomas Expressway and Walsh Avenue, off Central Expressway. Existing buildings on the site would be bulldozed to accommodate the future headquarters. (Courtesy of Gensler and Kilograph)

SANTA CLARA -- Nvidia said Wednesday it will build a new $300 million headquarters this year in Santa Clara that could accommodate thousands of employees.

Construction is expected to begin in June on a 500,000-square-foot building that will be the first phase of what could eventually be a million-square-foot, two-building campus near San Tomas Expressway and Walsh Avenue.

The project represents an expansion for Nvidia, which makes chips for 3-D graphics, mobile devices and other high-performance uses. It is running out of room at its current million-square-foot campus across the street from the 24-acre site of its new headquarters.

"Our headquarters in Santa Clara, just a few blocks from where we started, barely has a spare desk," Jen-Hsun Huang, founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia, said in a blog post on Wednesday. "We're absolutely bursting at the seams."

Nvidia's expansion signals that the Silicon Valley tech boom that has ushered in two years of dazzling job growth in Santa Clara County is far from running its course.

"We see no slowdown in 2013," said Justin Hedberg, a first vice president with Kidder Mathews, a real estate brokerage. "There is a lot of demand for big blocks of space. There are a lot of companies out there right now looking for large spaces."

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Nvidia currently employs about 3,300 people in Santa Clara. The first phase of the new development could accommodate 1,000 to 2,000 additional employees.

"We have been recruiting," said company spokesman Hector Marinez. "This expansion is great news for us and for the Bay Area."

The company expects to occupy the new building by July 2015. "Phase two, the second building, will occur when growth requires it," Marinez said.

Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), Facebook, LinkedIn, Samsung, Dell and Amazon unit Lab 126 are among the tech companies that have leased or bought large buildings in the past year or two, or that are planning major new projects for their head offices.

"There is a lot of new construction in Silicon Valley," noted Hedberg. "Rents are higher and they can justify taking an old R&D building, knocking it down, and building a new campus."

Also, technology companies are finding that to compete for top talent they must offer state-of-the-art, sleek new offices for their employees.

"All signs point to the job market in Silicon Valley getting stronger this year, or at least staying stable," Hedberg said.

Contact George Avalos at 408-373-3556 or 925-977-8477. Follow him at Twitter.com/george_avalos.

An artist rendering of the street view of the new Nvidia headquarters near its current base in Santa Clara. The campus, to be built on a 24-acre parcel that Nvidia purchased in 2008, will consist of two buildings, each with 500,000 square feet, the company said in a statement. (Courtesy of Gensler and Kilograph)